Speaking in December last year, Musk had explained his plans: "There’s a window that could be opened for a long time or a short time where we have an opportunity to establish a self-sustaining base on Mars before something happens to drive the technology level on Earth below where it’s possible."
He is planning to schedule the landing and arrival in 2025, along with flying there himself to live out his remaining days.
reuters
For early adopters of Mars as their home, the initial trek out from the space shuttle will be risky.
"Hopefully there’s enough people who are like that who are willing to go build the foundation, at great risk, for a Martian city," Musk told the Washington Post. "It’s dangerous and probably people will die—and they’ll know that."
It’s not like Mars already won’t be scary BEFORE these red planet pioneers show up - Musk has plans to literally bomb the atmosphere with huge fusion bombs into the sky above Mars, which will explode every few seconds, so that the planet can be warm enough to allow humans to live there.
"What I was talking about," Musk said, "was having a series of very large, by our standards, but very small by calamity standards, essentially having two tiny pulg-in suns over the poles. They're really above the planet. Not on the planet." Asked whether the plan would be difficult to make happen, Musk said: "Yeah, absolutely, no problem".
arstechnica
SpaceX plans to send an unmanned Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018, a first step in achieving founder Elon Musk’s goal to fly people to another planet. U.S. space agency NASA, which is aiming for a human mission to Mars in the 2030s, said it will provide technical support for SpaceX’s first foray, known as Red Dragon.
The SpaceX program is intended to develop technologies needed for human transportation to Mars, a long-term aim for Musk's privately held company, which is formally known as Space Exploration Technologies.
arstechnica
Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur who helped to found Tesla Motors and PayPal, started SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of slashing launch costs to make Mars travel affordable. The company recently has made spaceflight history by returning Falcon 9 rockets to landing pads on land and sea - key to Musk's quest to develop a relatively cheap, reusable launch vehicle.
Here's a call from the Chinese government to men in China in the age group of 20 to 45 years "for the sake of your country, please donate sperm".
i.huffpostconsultoresfinancieros
China has called for more young men to become donors to help fill sperm banks amid a shortage of volunteers in lieu of cash or iPhone, reports Daily Mail. China's sperm banks are facing severe shortages for a variety of political and cultural reasons.
Now that the government policy allows more Chinese couple, including older ones, to have a second child, officials are concerned that the sperm shortages will get much worse. Hence, they are doing everything they can to find new recruits.
Reportedly, the men are being targeted via social media with messages from computer-game characters and offers of cash up to 1,000 dollars in some cases and even a coveted rose-gold iPhone.
A study also revealed that nearly 50 percent of the people, who do offer to donate, are 'screened out'. According to the newspaper, China has an ageing populating and diminishing workforce and state-run media have been urging people to 'show your compassion' by donating.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionApple's developers event began with several moments' silence to mark the Orlando shooting
Apple has announced that it is bringing its virtual assistant Siri to the next Mac operating system.
It can be used to find information on its computers, carry out web searches and send messages to acquaintances.
The move lets the firm catch up with Microsoft, which offers a similar facility - Cortana - on Windows 10.
Apple also announced it would be opening up Siri on its iOS mobile operating system to third-party apps.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionApple's digital voice assistant, Siri, has been integrated into MacOS
The firm's software chief Craig Federighi said that meant iPhone and iPad users would soon be able to send Whatsapp messages or book Uber cars via voice commands.
One expert said the tool had been due a makeover.
"Siri had changed very little since it was acquired by Apple and added to iOS in 2011," said Ian Fogg from the tech consultancy IHS.
"In that time, Amazon and Google have dramatically improved their equivalent voice agents. So, Siri had fallen behind by comparison."
Apple's TV set-top box's version of the artificial intelligence tool is also being improved to let people search YouTube clips by speaking into its remote.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionSiri was also shown to integrate with voice apps, including Skype
The announcements were made at the tech giant's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco.
In April, Apple posted its first year-on-year drop in sales since 2003.
Its second quarter net profit was also 22% lower than than that of the the previous year due to reduced demand for its iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.
Revenue from its App Store was, however, higher.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe Mac operating system has been rebranded after 15 years of being called OS X
Automatic emojis
Apple's Messages app has also been given a major overhaul.
It has been opened up to third-party developers.
Given examples of what they can add to the program included animated stickers, money-transfer services and stripped-back tools from other apps - a food-ordering page was demoed.
This is an idea that is also being pursued by other messaging services including Facebook's Messenger, Google's Allo and Tencent's WeChat.
Apple is, however, seeking to distinguish its own software by giving users more control over how their messages are animated on the screen and introducing an Emojify tool. It scans typed-in text to flag words that can be changed into smileys and other ideograms.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionMessages now recommends the replacement of certain words with emojis
"Opening iMessage to developers and the introduction of new features will be key to driving engagement in the face of fearsome competition in the messaging space," said Geoff Blaber from the CCS Insight consultancy.
"But, ironically, small touches like enhanced messaging and emojis could have the biggest impact."
Older users might be more impressed with a new function that automatically transcribes voicemail.
Music redesign
Other announcements at WWDC included a revamp of the company's music streaming service.
Apple Music has been criticised for having a confusing user interface - a point the firm's services chief Eddy Cue acknowledged when he described the new version as being "more intuitive".
The software now features a simplified design with large headings, and appears to have shelved its social media section.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionApple Music has been redesigned to help its users explore its content more easily
"Apple is used to going into markets a little late with something better than its rivals, but it didn't do that with the original Apple Music," commented Mark Mulligan from Midia Research.
The firm also revealed that its payments facility Apple Pay would be extended to the web.
This will allow users to authorise payments at online stores' checkouts by authenticating their IDs via their iPhones or Watches rather than having to type in their credit card details.
"This brings better than chip-and-pin levels of security to online transactions, which is important to merchants, and it's convenient, which is important to consumers," said Dave Birch from research firm Consult Hyperion.
Home Kit
Apple is also creating an app to act as a centralised control for users' smart home devices.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionApple also showed off HomeKit, a central control service for smart home devices
It allows compatible products - including internet-connected thermometers, lights and front door locks - to be accessed from a single screen.
The app links up to Siri, which allows a trigger phrase - such as "good morning" - to activate several things at once, such as turning on an apartment's lights and raising its shutters.
Apple did not unveil new smart home hardware of its own - there had been speculation it would launch a voice-controlled speaker to compete with Amazon's Echo and Google's forthcoming Home.
Instead, it indicated the Apple TV would act as a kind of hub, linking all the various third-party products together.
"The smart home has had a lot of hype, but actual take-up is relatively small to date," said Michael Philpott from Ovum.
"The more noise the big tech firms make to educate consumers, the more they will all benefit, at least at the moment."
Watch scribbles
Apple also detailed updates to its smartwatch operating system.
The key improvement is that apps should launch much quicker than at present, which is achieved by keeping a user's favourite programs in the device's memory.
Image copyrightAPPLEImage captionThe Apple Watch will now allow users to type by "scribbling" on the device face with a finger
Apple is also making it possible for users to write words by drawing characters on the small screen with their finger via a new facility called Scribble. Google announced a similar facility to its Android Wear operating system last month.
Other improvements to Watch OS 3 include:
the ability to automatically unlock the user's Mac computer, so that users do not need to type in a password
a software dock that allows users to swipe between their apps quickly
the inclusion of a new app called Breathe, which is designed to help owners combat stress by taking deep breaths
a wheelchair user mode that extends the types of exercises the wearable can track
"WWDC was about incremental improvements rather than giant leaps," said Mr Blaber.
"It may not generate immediate consumer excitement, but Apple is further refining the experience, which will deliver subtle but compelling improvements to existing users."
